IRAQ vs USA/UK

[Accura]

i think i'd better add it's USA & UK Vs Iraq not the other way round but people are going to die in this war and by the looks of it the USA are killing most of the UK troops, good luck guys and come home soon.

 

[nath]

Yes, pip pip chaps!

 

[Nos-]

My views in pictures.

I thank you.

 

[Nighty-]

Daaaaaaamn right!

 

[Perplex]

The best post I've seen in quite a while Nos - I take my hat off to you

 

[Nos-]

I'd rather it be the trousers!

 

[Perplex]

Hmmm, fruity

 

[Tom]

BAN NOS FOR DRAWING A PENIS

 

[nath]

Lincoln wasn't a penis, he was the greatest man in the united states of freedom!

 

[Accura]

lol Nos i think you hit the nail on the head there, it would be nice to see good old uncal sam in a police uniform, becuase the USA seem to want to police the world.

 

[Munkey-]

And in the recent efforts to remove the Iraqi dictatorship and spread the ideals of America, including freedom of speech, Arabic international news channel, Al-Jazeera, has been removed from the NYSE and has been wiped off the internet.

Apparently they were removed from the NYSE floor to make way for other newsies. Quite how you can remove a major news corporation on that grounds is beyond me thou.

Al Jazeera had only just launched the english verison of their site but, that too, appears to have been wiped off.

 

[nath]

lol christ.

/me goes off to listen to some rage against the machine.


FREEDOM.....YEAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH RIIIIIIIGHHHHHTT

 

[xane]

Actually this is a bit misleading, Al-Jazeera has been removed from _reporting_ on the NYSE, there were not listed as a company.

They didn't exactly do themselves any favours showing the American PoW and dead soldiers footage in full.

Al-Jazeera was going down the drain anyway, their attitude towards 9/11 was annoying many of their major advertisers, particularly the Saudis, it would be lack of funds more than anything else.

 

[Munkey-]

The arabs have very large support of Al Jazeera infact, seeing as it is, methinks, the only arab international news corporation. (Khaleeji Times might be another as they always seem to offer it on airplanes). AJ recently won an award for its resistance of censorship. The accolade from the British based Index on Censorship was given for AJ's "apparent independance.
The index on Censorship said the channel. which came to worldwide prominence after broadcasting video tapes of Osama bin Laden, has won a repuation for credible news.
Jazeera said it was deeply concerned after two of its reporters were banned from the NYSE and its websites were hacked.

AJ beams into over 35 million arab homes. So I dont think it exactly has much to do with "lack of funds" and I highly doubt its "going down the drain". Particularly as it is soon launching an english version of its news broadcasting soon.

 

[xane]

Originally posted by Munkey-
AJ beams into over 35 million arab homes. So I dont think it exactly has much to do with "lack of funds" and I highly doubt its "going down the drain". Particularly as it is soon launching an english version of its news broadcasting soon.

Firstly are you sure that "beams into" is the same as "subscribers" ? Even if this is so, no satellite company, even Sky, exists on subscriptions alone, a large amount is still advertisement revenue, something AJ is loosing rapidly.

The figures are not actually impressive seeing as they don't exactly have a lot of competition, but they will have as another rival will be launched soon (if not already) in your very own Qatar, putting even more pressure on revenue.

Bear in mind that the Saudis hate bin Laden every bit as much as the west does and he is equally as critical of them too, so becoming a mouthpiece for Al-Qaeda was not a good move.

AJ is of little conseqence in Iraq, where satellite dishes are banned.

 

[Munkey-]

its a free TV channel. No subscription required and I dont see advertisments on it. How exactly did they become the mouthpiece for Al Qaeda?

Just because the satellite dishes are banned, doesn't mean people dont have them. Until recently in Qatar, Satellite dishes were banned as well. But that diddnt stop me and other people using them. If you'd gone atop any rooftop here, thats high enough of course, and you would've seen hundreds of the buggers.

It's their duty, as a news agency, to take an impartial view of things. Not complying to the wishes of some who view it as a "pro Al Qaeda" or "pro Iraq" channel because it broadcasts both sides of the story

 

[Furr]

Well its not free on Sky Digital

 

[Munkey-]

Well, satellite I'm recieveing from (one of the HOTBIRDS) has it for free

 

[Perplex]

Originally posted by Furr
Well its not free on Sky Digital

It's not even available on sky at all? Hence it's neither free nor subscription?

 

[Furr]

If you goto specialist channels on sky digital (the one with the indian channels) you will find al-jazera

BUT! as i said. Its not free

 

[Munkey-]

well a few theories pop to mind here.

1) Sky are making you pay for it because they have to upload it themselves from here.

2) Sky make you pay because its not really something that is popular viewing in the UK

3) Al Jazeera are charging sky for it.

Now number 3 i doubt a little because its available for free on quite a few satellites:

Arabsat IIA_C
Eutelsat Hotbird (III)
Eutelsat W2
Echo star III
Echo star IV
Nilesat


edit: this was revealed with a quick Google btw

 

[adams901]

I have a question for the Anti-War type....

I am neither Pro or Anti war, both good and bad things will come from it and to be honest I don't really care much either way, anyway here's the question.


Regardless of the intentions or reasons this war was started , be it Oil, WMD or Freedom for Iraqi people, one of the guaranteed outcomes will be the removal of Saddam from power and the introduction of a more stable government (preferably through the UN).

What would you anti-war types prefer (remember this answer will be based on the guaranteed removal of sadaam not based on the motives for the war).

1) The removal of Saddam through War on Iraq with some unfortunate yet unavoidable Civilian Casualties

or

2) Saddam being left in power to oppress his people through brutality and fear, to spend the countries money on things other than improving the quality of life for his people, and to continue to produce weapons he claims never existed (such as the scud missiles that keep being fired off towards Kuwait), and weapons that the UN inspectors failed to find after months of searching (again Scud missles)

Remember now the answer is not based on how just this war ior what it's Motive is, it will be based on the garunteed removal of Saddam.


I say Garunteed removal because I dont think bush will stop until his removal now, because if he does he will make himself look a fool.

(I forgot to add im don't really care what happens in Iraq so I wont be taking any sides on ths debate. A bad attitude I know, but i have enough things to worry about, without worrying about what happens to people in other countries)

 

[Munkey-]

Originally posted by Munkey-
Whilst I agree that Saddam should be removed, I believe that the motives behind the war are suspect. Conflict and dictatorships have been inplace throughout the world much longer than Saddam has and the effects have been much worse than his actions. For example, certain African states have been in an almost perpetual state of civil war with massacres, war atrocities and the such. Then theres Isreal who posses weapons of mass destruction.

And then theres Turkey, who've killed far more Kurds than Saddam has, who are preparing to move into Northern Iraq to "supress" any bid of freedom or indepdance from the Kurdish people.

In a conversation with an American Officer where I asked him the causes for the war he stated "he has weapons of mass destruction". In a reply to where these supposed WoMD might be he said.......North Korea. Now mightn't this be an enourmos(sp) oversight if the very country you're invading doesnt have these weapons and that a "red" country with nuclear armaments and chemical and biological weapons has them instead. Either that or the mental intelligence present within the American army has fallen dramatically.

Already Afghanistan is beginning to lapse back into its old ways as the international media sweeps to its latest carcass which gives me serious doubts to the future of Iraq after the, I'm sorry to say, inevitable conquest. We've seen how America's efforts to free countries has so far proceeded, needing only to look at South America and Iraq for this. People say that this topic will be given to the UN to debate upon.

We've all seen how effective the UN are and, with the US and UK having already defied the UN's general wishes, will they be willing to follow them again. The recent summit of the Arab nations has shown almost unanimous resent against the US for this war, with Kuwait being the only one for the war. Presumably the topic of Palestine has been brought up again, another area within which the Arab nations can unanimously agree upon.

I can only say that it is a sad state of affairs if a regime is one of the only nations to show their support for the Palestinian cause and to have actually acted upon it, so far as to bomb Isreal.

 

[adams901]

Well you mention motives for the war, so disregarding that bit...

You're against the war even though it will remove saddam, but then you also against him remaining in power?

Dont get me wrong, motives are a big thing, but im looking at a small outcome of the war that will be better for the Iraqis, regardless of the motive. (of course the small piece of good will depend largley on how effective the UN are, and I say the UN because they are insisting they handle the post war humanitarian issues)

 

[Munkey-]

read it again dear chap. particularly the last few paragraphs

 

[gremlin]

Of course this war isn't about oil...

*cough*bullshit*cough*

 

[maxi--]

did anyone see Hans Blix on newsnight last night?

he said that the intelligence revealing that Iraq had bought uranium(235?) was fake, the documents provided by them that is.

 

[nath]

That's the problem, Adam. You can't simplify this matter down to that level. There are more consequences of this war than a few civilian casualties. If it was the case that a few hundred Iraqi/Allied people died, Saddam and his family was removed, and then everything else continued as normal, I'd probably be less against this war. The fact is it's simply not (nor is it ever) that simple.

 

[stu]

Originally posted by adams901
What would you anti-war types prefer (remember this answer will be based on the guaranteed removal of sadaam not based on the motives for the war).

1) The removal of Saddam through War on Iraq with some unfortunate yet unavoidable Civilian Casualties

or

2) Saddam being left in power...

That's the very point though? The bit that the "pro-war" camp don't seem to understand. It's not a question of "should we leave him in power or not". You *don't* get to make that choice. It's a violation of international law to interfere in the running of another sovereign country. End of. It does not matter what happens within Iraq. It's by turning the invasion into a passive question (ie should we leave him in power or not) rather than an active one (should we invade or not) that they've given any sort of legitimacy to it at all.

I'll put it another way. The United States infringes human rights in a massive number of ways. Does that give anyone else a right to invade them and remove the government? Should we just "leave" George Bush in power?

 

[xane]

Munkey,

You are bringing straw men into the argument, by your deduction the UN or the US may not move against any dictator unless it moves against all of them at the same time !

The sad point is, tyrants live under the protection of international law, in Iraq's case they violated conditions laid down by the UN and gave a premise to authorised military action. France, Russia, China, etc may have wished to give inspectors more time but at the end of the day they would have endorsed military action if Iraq had failed to comply, it's no use arguing otherwise as the details are in UNSC Resolution 1441.

This gave the US an excuse, and I fully agree it was one driven by other motives and they may have been too hasty, but the initiative existed and they took it, only history will tell whether they did the right thing, so it is no use speculating on that point. In WW2 the Americans were castigated for being late, so whatever happens they'll be damned.

Israel and nukes: I'm not a big fan of Israel and I don't endorse their stance at all, but they do not possess any WMD apart from nukes, for which there is no worldwide ban (unlike biological and chemical), there is a non-proliferation treaty but Isreal hasn't signed it. On the other hand Iraq possesses, and has used, banned weapons, and _has_ signed the relevent treaties, which makes them a far greater violator than Isreal.

Kurds: have killed a lot of Kurds too, you forget there are a lot of rival groups fighting themselves as well, in any case its a purile argument to consider Saddam because he hasn't killed as many as Turkey.

Afghanistan: the "old ways" are pre-Taliban, and the intention was to lapse back into them anyway, there is no problem with that, and if you think tribal culture is beneath you then you're as guilty as the Americans promoting free market capitalism as the solution to the world's problems, if anything it's a sign America is _not_ interfering like everyone said they would.

UN ineffectiveness: this was apparent 12 years ago, despite repeated Resolutions to the effect, nothing was done about Iraq, the word "ultimatum" has a different meaning in the UN.

Palestine: maybe you are not aware of the enormous inroads made in this are since the first Gulf War. A Saudi peace initiative brokered by the Americans has been adopted by every single Arab nation apart from Syria, once they comply Israel will be forced to withdraw to 1967 borders, the US was even speculating on using financial pressure to achieve this. Then 9/11 happened, and that put a big spanner in the works, and now Syria, since the change of ruler, have become increasingly hostile to the peace plan, even though it's the only way they'll regain lost territory.

Bringing the Arab League into the argument is blatent hypocrasy, IIRC they have attempted unauthorized military action several times against another sovereign state, directly in violation of international law, to consider their opposition on another military intervention is pure chutzpah (that word was picked very carefully )